


Worth the Weight

by SecretGeniusShittyKnight (augopher)



Series: You Could Be My Luck [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Deaf!Whiskey, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Latino Whiskey, Nightmares, Pre-Slash, Secret Crush, Sharing a Bed, hints of past traumatic event, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/SecretGeniusShittyKnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A forgotten item at home makes a roadie a little rough for Whiskey, and he finds his night plagued with a horrible nightmare. Luckily Dex is there to offer some comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth the Weight

**Author's Note:**

> For Check Please Trope Challenge #4: Hurt/Comfort.
> 
> Note: there is some referenced past trauma and implied PTSD.

With the team’s heartbreaking loss still heavy on everyone’s minds, Rafa reached into the bag in Coach Hall’s hand, pulling out a key card. This little experiment the coaches started in order to boost team morale had shown mixed results since its inception. Instead of choosing who they’d share a room with, each team member drew a key from the bag. It was silly, and more than a few players had voiced their displeasure with it, the most noise coming from their captains.

He wrote his name next to room 114 on the sheet and prayed that he wasn’t stuck rooming with Marky again. Nice enough guy, sure, but he had this infuriating habit of watching TV way past curfew, which only served to flood the hotel room with eerie blue light in the. It made it impossible for Rafa to get a decent night’s sleep. So far, he’d managed to pull the same room as Marky five times.

It seemed, however, that he was the first to get room 114, and so, duffle slung over his shoulders, he made his way to the stairs. Even though the team liked to chirp him for preferring the stairs, elevators were just not a place he liked to be. Too small, too cramped, too much. Much too much. At least that’s what he told the team. Not like he could ever convey the depth to which he had learned to fear them as a child, witnessing one too many stressful moments between his parents in the elevator of their apartment building. A lot of harsh words could be said in the time it took to ride from the ground to fifteenth floor. There was only one elevator he could stand, and that was the one in the co-op he lived in with his vovó, the one that took him home.

Thankfully, he only needed to go up three floors this time.

 

***

 

The mattress was lumpy, no surprise there. You get what you pay for sort of thing, and Rafa imagined that staying in five, four, or hell, even three star hotels was just not in the team’s budget. He’d tossed and turned for quite sometime before he felt himself settle in his skin. Tonight’s game had be rough for everyone. They’d been outmatched in almost every category except perhaps size, but Rafa left the game with his blood more like an icy slurry in his veins than red hot. Not literally of course, and yet, that was the only way he could describe the sensation. Strange that a routine occurrence such as a hard check could set his teeth on edge, but there was something about their defenseman’s expression as he ran Rafa into the glass that was like looking into a window of his pre-deafness life. Staring into the face of everything that had gone wrong had him slowly unraveling, and by the time he’d dragged himself into the bathroom to ready himself for bed, he was ready to leave his body behind for the next eight hours.

But then, he rummaged through his bag of toiletries only to find an important bottle missing. No, no, no. The thought of getting through a night without his medication to keep the past at bay, scared him shitless. Instead of relaxing into sleep, he fell face first onto his bed, face buried in one pillow, head covered by another. He ran through every technique he had to drive the sensation of impending doom away; he wasn’t sure it would help. When his eyelids grew too heavy to keep open any longer, he drifted off to sleep.

It was anything but restful.

 

 

> _Flashes of blinding light broke through with his intermittent consciousness. They were jarring, horrifying, and he blinked against the harshness of the fluorescent bulbs. Though his vision was blurry, he saw strangers’ mouths moving, but he heard...nothing. The shock rippled through him like a blast wave, and once more everything went black._

 

Rafa clutched a pillow tightly to his chest, curling around it. Silent tears rained down his cheeks in the dark.

 

 

> _He wasn’t fast enough this time, too disoriented, to shield himself from the ominous black object coming toward him. It collided with his head with a thunderous and sickening crack only slightly louder than the explosive pop that came from the other side of his head only moments before. Pain, white-hot and nauseating, tore through his body as he waited for it to get worse. Mamãe had said things could always be worse, but right now, he didn’t know how._

 

He trembled on the bed, chest heaving while he struggled to breathe. Soft pleas for help tumbled from his lips.

 

 

> _Cold unblinking eyes stared back at him when his eyelids fluttered open. He choked out a broken sob, the word feeling funny in his mouth, too thick and heavy to be right. If only he could reach out his hand, he might...but he couldn’t move._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Help!” he cried over and over, minutes ticking by into eternity before his vision whited out on him._

 

Rafa’s eyes snapped open to a room filled with light. He gasped for air, hands clasping at the sides of his head in memory of the pain. His eyes darted around the room, expecting to see unknown doctors in medical scrubs, blood, and too much activity.

“Alliteration, caesura, euphony, hyperbaton, metaphor, polysyndeton, synecdoche. Alliteration, caesura, euphony, hyperbaton, metaphor, polysyndeton, synecdoche.” He repeated his grounding mantra: a list of his favorite literary devices, several more times until he began to see the room for what it was, one in a hotel and not an emergency room.

He did not, however, expect to see Will sitting on his bed, looking over at him with cautious and worried eyes. In his hands, he cleaved to a pad of paper and marker. Rafa rubbed his temples in an effort to drive away the menacing headache that plagued him.

Will forewent signing or even speaking, choosing instead to write on the paper. **_Are you okay?_ **

Rafa shrugged and massaged the back of his neck. “I forgot my medication in my dorm room. How could I have been so careless?”

Will hastily scribbled away. **_I didn’t know you took medication. Is it serious, like do we need to find an all night pharmacy?_ **

That was the point. He didn't want anyone to know he needed medication. “No. It’s not for a life threatening thing like a heart condition or anything. Just, I get nightmares.”

**_Because of your accident?_ **

Yeah, accident. That sounded so much better than the truth. But he didn’t feel like lying to him, so he said nothing.

**_Anything I can do to help?_ **

He’d been so sure that he’d packed his bottle of Minipress, that he didn’t even bother to pack his special blanket that eased his panic and brought him fully back to the present. No use in trying to sleep now.

“I...um...no. I don’t think so. I was in a hurry to make it to the bus in time. And the only other thing that would help, I don’t have. I’ll just go chill in the bus the rest of the night so you can sleep.” As he stood on shaky legs and made his way to the door, Will reached out and grabbed his hand.

Will stood up and looked straight at him. This time, he spoke. “You don’t have to leave. Just talk to me, and I will do what I can to help. Whis- Rafael, please just let me try.”

Rafa’s heart thudded in his chest, the way it _always_ did now when Will touched him, though he suspected it wasn’t entirely because of that tonight. “Okay.”

Will sat back down on his bed, patting the space beside him, making sure to keep the pad of paper between them. Then, he picked up the marker. **_What do you usually do after a nightmare like this?_ **

Rafa, took the Sharpie from him. **_Promise you won’t chirp me?_ **

Will covered Rafa’s hand with his own and gave a little squeeze.

Taking that gesture as a yes, he wrote, **_I have a special blanket that helps_ **

**_Like a security blanket kids have sometimes?_ ** Will handed him back the marker.

 **_No. It’s heavy. Weighs like fifteen pounds. I doubt you have anything like that in your duffel._ ** He dropped the marker onto the paper where it rolled towards Will who sat motionless for almost a minute as though he were deep in thought. Maybe he was.

**_You’re right. I don’t. But I have an idea. Do you trust me?_ **

“Of course. You’re my best friend, so…”

Will gave his arm a tug until he moved Rafa towards the pillows. Then, he gave a gentle push to his shoulders. Rafa flopped back onto the mattress.

“What the-”

Will held up his hand to halt any further words and scribbled out an answer. **_Just lie there okay. It’s not gonna be fifteen pounds. Sorry, but it’s the best I can do._ ** He crawled into the middle of the bed and stretched out perpendicular, resting his head on Rafa’s chest. Then, he draped an arm over his stomach. “Is this okay?” he asked, his face turned towards him.

“Yeah. This is...it’ll help. Thanks, Will. Means a lot.”

“Anytime.”

 

***

 

A beam of warm, morning sunlight striking him in the face, roused Rafa from sleep. He stretched out his stiff limbs feeling more rested than he had in days. Will was no longer half on top of him, not that Rafa expected him to be. Sleeping in that position all night couldn’t have been comfortable.

He rolled over to find a mug of coffee sitting beside a plate filled with chunks of mangoes and grapes, Canadian bacon, and toast. Folded up underneath it sat a note.

 

>  
> 
> **_I hope I got your coffee the way you like it. The balance of milk to coffee you prefer is tricky. Also...they had no cheese. Sorry._ **

 

Smiling, he was about to set the note aside when he saw the postscript at the bottom.

 

 

> **_P.S. I’m glad you let me help you, and I would never chirp you about a thing like this. I don’t know if was the fact my ear was pretty much over your heart, but I slept like a baby. I really needed a good night’s sleep too. So thanks a lot. I guess we helped each other._ **

 

 

> **_Will_ **

 

This time when his heart pounded in his chest, Rafa knew for certain it had nothing to do with his nightmare.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [Tumblr](http://secretgeniusshittyknight.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If you were curious about weighted blankets [read here](http://www.ptsdjournal.com/posts/sleeping-with-weighted-blanket-helps-insomnia-and-anxiety-study-finds/)


End file.
